The government had first sought to ban just the individual threads it found objectionable but, because Reddit uses HTTPS, the only way to eliminate of those threads was to nuke the entire site from orbit (it’s the only way to make sure). According to reports from Meduza, the ban came at the behest of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, which felt that the content promoted discussion of these substances.
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Roskomnadzor, the agency responsible for the communications, technology, information, and mass media in Russian Federation officially banned Reddit because it contains advice on how to cultivate the narcotic plants.
The Russian government has said it’s considering a nation-wide block on the social website Reddit over concerns about easily accessible information on growing and acquiring drugs.
Earlier, the Russian government deployed its media forces to ask Reddit to remove drug-growing posts, but there was no reply, Vocativ reported.
“If anyone has contacts with the Reddit administration, ask them to check their email for letters from Roskomnadzor, otherwise, due to technological features, many operators may block the whole site”, the VKontakte post said. GitHub, an internet site belonging to the Jehovah’s Witnesses church and the Web Wayback machine have all additionally been blocked.
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This potential move follows similar threats made against YouTube and its recent blocking of Pirate Bay. Wikipedia was blacklisted in 2013 for including an explanation on “Cannabis Smoking”, and a number of websites criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have also been blocked, the most prominent belonging to Vladimir Putin critics Alexei Navalny and Gerry Kasparov.
